Leaving the flies behind at Lesueur National Park, it was not a long trip to Sandy Cape Recreation Reserve on Friday (3/10/14) evening. As its name would suggest, Sandy Cape is on the coast, where sand features strongly in terms of quantity, and in activities. Yes, this is another place where fun can be had sand boarding!

crazy speed demon!

It is quite a popular place for families to stay, with the sheltered bay and the sand hills both providing suitable entertainment for kids. We ended up staying a couple of nights at Sandy Cape, deciding to have a bit of a relaxed easy day Saturday (when we shot the 3 month video interview!). Though we did move to a different campsite after the first night, to avoid another night of being kept awake by a baby!

campsite for the second night, looking back from the beach dunes

the bay

These pics are from atop the nearby sand dunes, which are a very short, but steep, walk from the campsite.

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Following our nice overnight camp near rural Northhampton, we headed into the town of Geraldton Thursday morning (2/10/14). Geraldton has surf beaches, so the boys and I were keen to do some body boarding. Unfortunately the surf was a bit of a mess, with multiple gutters and the like, so we kept ourselves on dry ground.

Instead we occupied ourselves with exciting stuff like looking around, stocking up on groceries, and going to the laundromat… We did pick up one very useful tip from one of the info centre ladies – you can buy tap keys that can be used to operate all those taps you see around the place without handles on them (for vandal proofing). Comes in a + shape with 4 different adapters for the different types out there, and this makes it easier to find a spot where we can fill up with drinking water. Obvious really, and don’t know why I didn’t think of it prior, but very useful.

We didn’t give the boys a totally boring day though, because Geraldton also boasts sand boarding as a local activity. So we went and found one of the spots where they do this and they had a good time on their body boards acting as sand boards. Good fun for them, and the best bit from my view? They are completely stuffed from climbing the hills so many times!

the flying position

Our visit to Kalbarri National Park, and its namesake town, was another unplanned seize-the-moment decision (as was Point Quobba recently). Seems this might become a more frequent occurrence, now that we are heading into completely unknown territory (for us)!

There is no camping allowed in Kalbarri National Park itself, and given the corrugated dirt roads into the main walking/trails area, it was definitely going to be a one day only visit! However, we did spend the night in Kalbarri township (in someones yard, but I’ll get to that!!!), so had the opportunity to check this pretty holiday town out.

First though, it was late Tuesday (30/9) morning when we entered Kalbarri NP, paid the $12 entry fee, and arrived at Hawks Head. We did the walk here and at the nearby Ross Granham lookouts. These are simple short walks, but there is an extension to the Ross Graham lookout that takes the track down to the river. The views from both lookouts are pretty, as was the river walk.

Hawks Head lookout

Contrasting with the laid back quiet nature of Point Quobba, entering shark bay we found ourselves in a real tourist location. Even the main road heading up the peninsular has a grand sandstone brick entrance at the hwy turn-off… It is obviously widely promoted, with a larger presence of Asian tourist compared to other attractions/locations we’ve seen on the WA coastline. I gather it is primarily the dolphins that they come to see. In terms of Aussie tourists / grey nomads, the caravan parks were pretty empty.

We visited the attractions (some of them anyway) as we came across them. The first turnoff was to Hamelin Pool, and the stromatolites within. Hamelin Pool simply refers to the huge shallow area of Shark Bay, which is really salty due to evaporation and little fresh water inflow. Its about double the salt concentration of normal seawater! The result of this is that not much can survive in this salty water, so most of the life forms present in the water are pretty primitive.

The stromatolites are one example of this – they are just the build up of microbes over time, that has turned into a type of living rock. Or microbial mats, converted into microbialites, as the signs put it.

stromatolites on the edge of the bay

The next attraction is Shelly Beach, which is probably different from what you might first imagine. Yes it is very shelly, in fact the whole beach is made of shells – up to 9m deep in total! However it is all one type of shell/organism, the Fragum Cockle. This beach is also on the Hamelin Pool, and the Fragum Cockle is the only seashell that can survive the high salt concentration! This gives it a monopoly on the shoreline, which it has had for many many years. Fortunately it is a smallish nice enough looking white shell, so its a pretty beach to look at!!

Shelly Beach